Sep 29: Healing, Tethered to the Feeding Tube

It has been 10 days since I got home from the hospital.  For 18 hours a day I am tethered to the feeding pump.  This is roughly 6pm to 12 noon.  Then from noon till 6pm I am free.  I do mostly the same stuff when I'm free as when I'm tethered.  Martha and I go to the track at Southridge HS so I can get some exercise.  I walk at least 1/2 mile, sometimes 3/4 at a session.  One day Martha and I went twice, once right after I unhooked and once before I hooked back up to the pump.  Powell came over and walked with me on Friday.  It was raining and a little windy.  Yesterday the rain was so bad I did not go.  Today may also be a too-rainy day, we'll see.

I spend 99% of each day just hanging around the house reading, browsing the internet, watching TV etc.  I am working 1/2 time (since Wednesday) and I start working full time this coming Wednesday.

I have had nothing to eat or drink through my mouth since the surgery, which will be 3 weeks ago this Wednesday.  We meet with Dr. Dunst (my surgeon) a week from Tuesday.  She wants me to have tried some liquids (including a milk shake) before we meet with her.  I'm going to start the liquids on Saturday.  Slowly, water first.

I have had no serious problems.  When I first got home I could not sleep on either side - my abdomen hurt too much when I tried.  Now I can sleep on both.  This makes a big difference and I'm sleeping ok.  Not great, just ok.  The problem is I'm getting water automatically and have to get up to go to the bathroom a few times a night.  I have to haul the pole (see below) along with me, so it wakes me up.  The only two problems I have are:  my breathing is shallow and my lower back muscles hurt if I stand for very long, almost like they are getting ready to cramp.  The shallow breathing must have been an expected consequence of surgery since they gave me a device to measure how much breath I could take in and told me to work on increasing it.  Why the back muscles seem to be cramping, I do not know.

The Pole, the Pump, and the Feeding Tube
The formula,"Jevity 1.5", and water are pumped directly into my upper intestine.  The formula is pumped at a rate of 90ml/hour.  90 ml is not that much.  The formula and water are hanging in bags off a 5-1/2 foot pole.  The pump is a little blue box, "the Kangaroo Joey", that is also attached to the pole:

If you look carefully you'll see a small tube dropping down out of the middle of my sweatshirt.  You cannot see the entire tube, but the other end comes back up and into the pump, between the black power cord and the pole.

Martha is the expert on setting up the pump each day.  She has been my hero. She learned it how to operate the pump at the hospital from one of the nurses who was really helpful (Sabra).  Martha sets the pump on totally automatic - it switches back and forth between food and water.  All we have to do is make sure the bags do not get empty.  Martha does all of that also, except in the early morning I top off the bags.

The tube from the pump connects to the feeding tube which was surgically placed in my abdomen:

My hand is holding near the end of the tube from the pump.  That purple thing at is kind of like a nozzle that fits into the feeding tube.  The feeding tube is the sort-of-Y-shaped gizmo that says "JEJUNAL" on the side.  For the 6 hours or so when I'm detached from the pump, I just tuck that small tube including the Y-shaped gizmo in my shirt.